A group of 15 Western ambassadors in Beijing, spearheaded by Canada, are seeking a meeting with the top official in China’s restive, heavily Muslim Xinjiang region for an explanation of alleged rights abuses against ethnic Uighurs.

Thousands of nationalist demonstrators of the so-called “Civil Initiative for a United Macedonia” resumed their protests in Skopje yesterday (2 May) against a plan for a coalition government that includes ethnic Albanian parties, five days after they burst into parliament and assaulted lawmakers.

A top Tutsi general was gunned down in Burundi yesterday (25 April), the latest bloodshed in a year of violent political turmoil that has now prompted a preliminary probe by international prosecutors into a litany of atrocities.

Authorities in Burundi arrested a leading dissident and shut down the main independent radio station Monday (27 April) as they battled a second day of demonstrations against a bid by the president to cling to power for a third term.

The Central African Republic's transitional government has postponed a peace forum involving factions in a two-year-old conflict that has killed thousands, a statement from parliament said, as the country prepares for elections by the end of the year.

All sides of the conflict in South Sudan have at times become very "fixed, dark and negative" as outbreaks of violence continue. The country needs lasting peace so that it can see the benefits of its agricultural potential, according to the FAO's representative in South Sudan.